


Easy, Easy

by jvo_taiski



Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - All Media Types, The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, Infidelity, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Pining, it's not entirely miserable, some soft moments lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:27:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29140014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jvo_taiski/pseuds/jvo_taiski
Summary: Nostalgia is a fucking liar. And he misses what they had more than he wants to admit.
Relationships: Sylvia/Dallas Winston, Tim Shepard/Dallas Winston
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Easy, Easy

**Author's Note:**

> I have a weakness for Dal/Tim what can I say?

Nostalgia is a fucking liar. Twists things from what they were, distorts memories like scratching film, only selecting the good moments to play in his head on repeat.

There’s a goddamn reason he’s spent years tormented by an ache that only gets worse when he leaves for good.

(He’ll never know if Dallas meant to make him feel the way he does.) 

*** 

Good moments, easy moments, mornings next to him. A lazy ache of muscles and someone’s nasty morning breath in his face and white-blonde hair falling over his eyes—there’s a four in seven chance that he’ll wake up with Dallas’ hand on his hip and whining _c’mon, Shep_ and _let me fuck your legs_ and if he’s lucky, _please?_

(Only four out of seven nights. On average. Dal’s unpredictable and he has other places to be, other people to see—Tim’s good at ignoring his own pathetic thankfulness that Sylvia’s parents won’t let boys stay over.)

And he _will_ grind his morning wood against Tim’s ass because he’s a fucking horny bastard and Tim will bitch about it, call him insatiable, call him needy, but he’ll cave in the end, just like Dallas knows he will.

_Fine, for fuck’s sake._ And, with the promise of a blowjob for compensation, there’s not really much else more relaxing than lazy morning sex. When there’s not much to think about, only Dal’s sweaty body moulded to his back, his mouth on his neck and the messy slide of pre-come, lube and spit between his thighs.

In reality, there’s only around a two in five chance that he’ll actually get that blowjob—maybe Dal will jerk him off instead, in the same lazy position, or roll over to let Tim do the same to him. Sometimes, he’ll just up and leave Tim to deal with himself and it’s fucking frustrating but when he messes around with Winston, that’s just an occupational hazard. Besides. Tim’ll rage about it, but he knows that Dal’s probably just fixing to get fucked real good later on.

Mornings are the easiest, when it’s too early to start a fight. It’s when everything feels the most _right,_ when the two of them can just exist in the same space and it’s. Easy.

*** 

There’s a girl hanging off Tim’s arm and Dally’s gaze is hanging on Tim’s every move.

(What’s her name, did he even remember to ask? Dal teases him about it sometimes, the irony that comes with his charm and curly hair and twisted smile and no desire to use any of it picking up women.)

But Dal’s eyes track him around the room, through the mix of fumes, between throngs of sweaty scantily-clad bodies and Hank fucking Williams. He’s not got anyone with him, not even one of the countless girls drifting around and looking for company.

(If all the hours he’s spent listening to Hank Williams at Buck’s parties were totalled, the number still wouldn’t come close to all the hours he’s spent listening to Dal bitch about Buck’s music taste.)

It’s addictive, those sharp blue eyes on him. Makes his blood buzz. And it’s easy to take a girl and grind against her real slow in the middle of the room, deliberately in Dal’s line of sight—make his eyes narrow and lips thin.

Then _c’mon, Dal, don’t tell me you’re actually jealous_ , as if Tim doesn’t know exactly what he was doing to him the whole time, feeling up that girl’s rack right in front of him, disappearing into a bathroom with her. Dallas won’t deign answer but he’ll slam him up against the nearest wall as soon as they’re alone, antsy as he’ll ever be.

“You are,” Tim crows. “You’re jealous. Dumb punk.”

“Shut up.”

“What? Don’t tell me you ain’t ever imagined getting it on with ol’ Cindy. Wanna go back out and try it? I’m finished with her.”

“Shut up.”

“Or was it me you were lookin’ at the whole time, huh, Dal?”

“ _Shut_ your queer ass.”

And then he’ll go in, brutal, teeth and tongues and bruising grip. So possessive. Tim hates the part of himself that loves it like that, loves when Dal’s all wound up and when he _wants_. Because while he’s the only one in the world who knows that Tim’s reputation as a player is about as legit as a counterfeit bill—while he fucking knows he’s got Tim hook, line and sinker—he still _wants_ , and wants it bad and that’s the only thing Tim’s got over him.

***

“It’s not cheating,” he tries to say, for the hundredth time, even though Tim’s never asked.

(Why would he? One of these days Dal’s gonna find his conscience and Tim’s not itching for him to find it sooner.)

_It’s not cheating,_ and he looks agitated and Tim wants to kick the shit out of him.

“You can leave,” Tim points out. “Anytime.”

“I ain’t gonna—it’s not fuckin’ cheating, alright?” He looks so damn miserable that Tim resists the urge to start one of their fights. He lights up a cigarette instead and lies back, watches the smoke curl and disperse into the half-light.

And then he’ll try to justify it and Tim will barely be listening because it’ll make him angrier, and when he tries to calm down there’ll only be emptiness left behind.

_It’s not cheating,_ because Sylvia is a woman, his girlfriend, back together again even though Dally still lets Tim in his bed and Sylvia lets other men into hers. He heard them fucking earlier (probably in this exact bed) and Tim wanted to scream, burst the door down and throw something, throw himself onto train tracks for letting his guard down in the few short weeks he had Dal to himself.

Who the hell is he even cheating _on_ anymore? Sylvia, or Tim?

(Sylvia is his girl. Tim is… Tim doesn’t know what he is. Nobody important. And it doesn’t bother him.)

(Sylvia is his _girl_.

Is that why? Because she’s a woman and Dal’s not actually queer?)

“Whatever, I don’t care,” Tim interrupts smoothly, taking another drag of his cigarette. “You’re getting cold feet? Fine. We’ll stop doin’ this. Whatever.”

Does Dal think it’s _whatever?_ When he stills and looks down at Tim, braced on his forearm and that ridiculous blonde hair hanging around his head in wisps?

He moves then, slowly, like he’s still not sure he’s allowed. But fuck it. Tim knows he’s something Dal can’t share with his girl and it’s good enough for him—he’s almost vindictive when he pulls Dallas down on top of him.

_(Fuck you, Sylvia.)_

Hopefully Dal spends every day eaten up with guilt, but with Dallas, that’s not likely.

Lips together again, and fuck that they touched Sylvia’s. He rolls on top and watches Dal struggle to keep his eyes open when Tim shoves a hand down his pants. Kiss him, bruising. Leave a mark.

_(Fuck you, Sylvia.)_

Back away then, hesitant, but only enough for their foreheads to touch. But Dal’s gasping now and he drags them together again and Tim doesn’t resist. He never can.

Little touches, forceful, desperate. Over too quickly. All stolen. A hand on his cheek, thighs pressed together, the empty space between them where their breath mingles.

In a different world, maybe?

Tim’s not dumb enough to wonder but he still wishes it was easy.

So he hauls him close instead and chokes back the stupid things he can’t say with every rough kiss, stupid things like _mine_ and _stay with me_ , and can’t help letting it show when he wraps arms around his chest and holds on like a lifeline. Heart beating, know it’s his.

He only breaks away when the acrid stench of something burning cuts through his haze.

“Shit—”

“You punk-ass _bitch,_ Timothy—”

There’s a lick of flame starting on the ugly little rug that Buck’s thrown into the room for whatever reason. It’s probably from where Tim discarded his cigarette. They’re both frozen for a second, watching the orange spread, casting long shadows over the walls and then—

“Shit!”

Tim jumps out of bed and snatches Dally’s boots off the ground, swearing, and tries using them to stamp it out before it can spread. Dal’s leapt after him and _god,_ what kinds of filth is in the fuckin’ rug? Tim gags. It fucking _stinks—_

Another frantic ten seconds later and there’s a hand-sized black mark branded into the thick piss-coloured wool. Tim’s got a suspicion that it used to be white.

“You know,” says Tim, breaking the silence. “I reckon we did Buck a favour, sterilisin’ that rug.”

Dal snickers, and cracks open a window. “You’re a fuckin’ idiot, Timothy.”

And there it is, the mad glint and the wild grin that makes Tim’s knees go weak. Dal lunges forward and jumps on him, socks him on the side and, “I oughtta beat the tar out of you for tryna burn the both of us down—and here I was, thinkin’ you were s’posed to be the one with a head.”

“Shut th’fuck up.”

They go tumbling to the bed in a messy pile of limbs and laughter and like this, he’s everything Tim’s ever wanted—sometimes, Tim can’t believe that he’s one of the few people who gets to see him this _uninhibited,_ a mouthy little shit whose eyes crinkle when he smiles and who shivers and gasps when Tim sucks a mark onto the inside of his pale thigh.

_(Fuck you, Sylvia.)_

That’ll be a bitch to hide.

What the hell is he doing, toeing the line towards getting caught? And why doesn’t Dallas ever make him stop? There are times he suspects that maybe Dal subconsciously craves something else just as much as he does, or maybe he just doesn’t give a hang. About anything. Tim feels out of his body when their clothes end up shucked off on the floor and there’s all this _skin_ in front of him.

(Don’t think about where that cock has just been.)

_And here I was, thinkin’ you were s’posed to be the one with a head._

He’s not, not when he’s a mess, torn between desperately wanting Dal to just fucking _choose_ —

(Maybe that’s why he’s not careful when he kisses, when he grips pale hips?)

—and dreading the moment. Bile in his throat, a tremor in his hands. It’s not gonna be him.

_(I hate you so damn much.)_

Dallas comes with this choked-off gasp, like he always does, and Tim wonders whether he makes the same noises when he’s with _her._

***

It’s not always awful and he rarely realises it until it’s threatening to slip from his grasp. It’s gone completely before he gets around to appreciating it.

They go to a diner, once, with twenty bucks that they’ve mugged a Soc to get. Dal throws his pickles at Tim’s head and Tim flirts with the waitress until she’s blushing scarlet and Dal’s kicking him under the table like a kid, with a petulant scowl.

It’s the closest to a date that they’ll ever get, and he bitches about Tim’s driving afterwards, like he always does.

(“Just because I’m not trying to get us fuckin’ killed. Man, there’s a reason the cops took your licence.”

“And you drive like my dead nana, what about it?”)

Tim catches him humming along to the fuckin’ _Beach Boys_ of all things, but for once, doesn’t say anything. When Dal leans in, Tim shoves him away and tells him to chew a goddamn stick of gum because _there’s still green bits in your teeth, fuckin’ tramp._

He laughs and cranks the radio up louder and spits that same piece of gum into Tim’s mouth when they’re well away from public and their lips are joined again. Tim’s caught somewhere between horribly revolted and amused, so he settles for bashing Dally’s head into the dashboard and shoving that same piece of gum into his hair, then laughing when he’s forced to cut it out with his switch. Easy as anything.

But then Dal will disappear for days on end, once Tim’s just about let himself slip up. Let himself get too comfortable. He always expects it; why does it still feel like a kick in the chest?

He’ll come back eventually and provoke Tim into one of their bloody fights and he’ll get sick satisfaction when he breaks a couple of Dally’s ribs with a sickening _crunch_ —

(That’s how it feels.)

—until Dally’s draped himself over Tim’s bed and Tim’s holding a fucking ice pack to his eye while they share a joint. When Dal falls asleep, he’ll start off sprawled out on the bed like he fucking owns the place but always ends up curled in tight on himself, habit from the days when he used to slum it on the streets of New York. It’s always then that the guilt will hit Tim like a fucking freight train.

He looks younger when he sleeps, like most people do. He wears a tiny frown and that ridiculous corn-silk hair always flicks out in licks, in every direction, seeming to melt into the pillow when moonlight spills through the window and hits it just right. It makes _things_ well up inside Tim’s chest and he shouldn’t fucking feel bad for kicking his head in because he was goddamn asking for it, but he _does_. He does, whether he likes it or not.

The feeling’s always gone by the time he wakes up groggy with a sweaty body plastered to his back and warm breath on his neck and sunlight in his eyes. Easy, but only in the small moments.

***

Make a list of comparisons in his head. Sylvia cares when Dal gets himself locked up. Tim doesn’t.

(Or does he?

There’s always something missing when he’s gone.)

(Dal doesn’t care when _he’s_ in the cooler.)

But he’s gone for now, and there’s still someone tracking Tim around the bar, eyes piercing. It makes his skin prickle. It’s Sylvia, and her dark-brown almost-black eyes that give nothing away. She’s glaring. Does she know? A wave of spiralling panic because she can’t know, _she can’t know that he’s queer._

It’s ridiculous, of course she doesn’t know. As far as anyone is aware, Tim hooks up with a different broad every weekend and hasn’t bothered hold down a steady girl since 8th grade. The former is true, as far as necking and flirting goes, and the latter is also correct if only because if he tries committing to anything, they’ll know for sure. _Timothy Shepard is queer and can’t get it up unless he thinks of a man, like the fuckin' deviant he is._

He turns back to his beer and tries to tune out Hank William’s voice breaking worse than Dal’s, back when he was still fourteen and even scrawnier than now. Tim’s not even at Buck’s place, goddammit, but he can’t seem to escape it. 

_(“I got a feelin' called the blu-u-u-ue-es, oh Lord  
Since my baby said goodbye  
Lord, I don't know what I'll do-o-o-o-o  
All I do is sit and si-i-i-gh, oh Lord.”)_

Lord, it’s awful. It’s worse than scraping a rusty fork across a plate. Tim’s just downed the rest of his beer and he’s halfway to the pool table when a soft hand lands on his forearm.

“Tim Shepard, huh?”

“Sylvia.”

(Devil incarnate, at least to Tim. She’s real good-lookin’; he’s not blind.)

Act cool, give her a smirk. Offer to light one up and she accepts and _what the hell does she want?_

It only takes a little small-talk before she admits that she’s hacked off because her good-for-nothing boyfriend is in the cooler _again,_ and _oh,_ she’s so desperately lonely. Sneaking little bitch.

He doesn’t protest when she pushes him into the corner and kisses him almost aggressively—and hell, he can see why Dal would like this, would like her. And he hates her for it, but hates him more.

Slender fingers around his cock, and he pushes her into the grimy little bathroom and she gets down on her knees without any further prompting. She’s real fuckin’ good with her mouth (no wonder Dal rarely asks him for blowjobs, when he’s got this to look forward to) but Tim hates that it’s her and he’s pretty sure that she hates that it’s him.

So he closes his eyes and lets something angry run through him because he’s fucking Dal’s girlfriend’s mouth in a fucking bathroom in a bar and he’s still imagining it’s _him._ It’s only polite to offer to finish her off as well (because he might be a queer but he’s damn good with his fingers, better than Dallas) but she just shrugs and leaves. It’s the first time he’s ever seen her so jittery.

At home, and he feels like peeling his skin off, like there’s something ugly crawling up his throat. Why?

(It’s not because it’s his girl. She’s two-timed a hundred times before.)

(Does she feel this way every time she cheats?)

(Does _Dal_ feel like this when he sleeps with him? When he's with _her?)_

It’s regret, the feeling, and it’s illogical because he’s not _with_ Dallas, never was and never will be. Going steady is laughable. And Dal, did he ever plan to make him feel so damn guilty when he’s done nothing wrong?

(And if he’s really done nothing wrong, then why is he so goddamn _sorry_ for it?)

***

“Shep!”

It’s Dal, of course it’s Dal. Nobody else would have the nerve to storm into his bedroom in the middle of the night.

“When th’fuck did you get out of the cooler?” Tim fumbles for the lamp, and dull yellow washes over the room.

“Earlier today.” He waves a hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. I’m through with Sylvia. We’re done.”

“What?” Stings a bit that he’s been out of the cooler a whole day and she’s the first one he goes to. Tim swings his legs out of bed, but stays sitting. “Why?”

“The little broad two-timed me again.”

He’s got a nervous energy around him, a twitch in his movements when he tries reaching for Tim’s face. He’s upset; it’s obvious.

(He’s left her for good.

Does that mean he’s Tim’s now?)

“Wait,” snaps Tim, knocking forceful hands away from him. He just needs to know—

Dal frowns, impatient, and drops his hands to Tim’s waist instead. Wants to let off some steam, probably. Fuck it. Fuck him.

“She tell you who she cheated with?”

“No, and it don’t matter,” huffs Dallas, squirming when Tim holds him away. “Sneaking little bitch said she sucked someone off in a bathroom and she’s not damn sorry for it.”

(She told him? Why?

But she didn’t tell him who?)

“Dal,” says Tim, looking up at his distracted scowl, tugging his sleeves to get him to pay attention, goddammit. Eyes elsewhere, look at _him_ goddammit. “Dal, that was me.”

Silence. And he’s frozen like Tim’s shocked him with 50,000 volts straight to the chest, pale, eyes wide and hurt and Tim feels a hundred different excuses welling at the back of his throat, a hundred different ways to take it back—

_You don’t care. Why do you care? We’re not together, and Sylvia would’ve found someone else if it wasn’t me and you’re a fucking cheater anyway._

Or worse—what the hell, he’s struggling to hold back something that sounds disgustingly like _I’m sorry,_ and trying so hard that his throat physically stings from the effort.

“Dal—”

But then something crushingly vindictive runs through him, and god, fuck him—he doesn’t deserve it, he doesn’t deserve to hear Tim’s excuses. He deserves to feel it, to feel the same ache that’s plagued Tim for so damned long.

He doesn’t try and stop him when he turns on his heel and walks out the door without another word.

***

Slashed tyres, and Tim doesn’t need Curly to let him know who did it.

He finds a busted-up switchblade discarded under the car, snapped and bent from leaving violent scratches in the paintwork. No matter, Tim feels eerily calm. It’s alright; it’s what he’s used to.

Slashed tyres, a black eye and re-cracked ribs but this time there’s nobody snickering when Tim tries to bandage up his knuckles with his left hand. What's Dal doing now? Now that there's nobody’s hanging around in Tim's kitchen and drinking his coffee when he thinks he’s not looking, or making himself a peanut butter sandwich uninvited. Back to where the two of them started.

The next time he sees him is in the fuckin’ newspaper— _Lord,_ he’s in hospital and he’d better not be fuckin’ dead—

White walls and heart pounding in his throat, and he only remembers he’s not supposed to care when he stops short outside Room 134B and hears shouting from the inside.

_“Get out, you little fuckin’ bitch—”_

_“Call me a bitch one more time, Dallas, I dare you—”_

He tries to peel his feet from the ground and walk away—after all, if Dal’s shouting like that it means he’s fine—but it’s too late. The door gets thrown open and he’s frozen like a deer in headlights, right in front of Sylvia. Her eyes are blazing, and they’re directed right at him. Like he’s the source of all her problems.

He supposes he is, in more ways that she suspects, but he can’t summon the energy to feel guilty. So he smooths his face into a casual grin and steps around her exaggeratedly slowly.

“Fancy seein’ you here, darling.”

She looks like she’ll slap him. She doesn’t, and Dal notices him, and grins. Toss the newspaper at his head and watch him rip a fuckin’ needle out of his am when he tries catching it, then make crude comments while the nurse titters and tries putting it back in.

“Hero, huh? Man, you’re slackin’; it don’t even mention your record with the fuzz.”

(Voice steady, it doesn’t waver, just barely. He’s acting like there was never anything between the two of them, and that’s fine.)

“Shut th’fuck up, Timothy.”

(Easy as anything, no animosity. Doesn’t he care, even a little bit? That they’re through?)

“Bet you’re real hacked off you won’t be seein’ the rumble tonight.”

“Shut th’fuck up, Timothy, before I make you.”

“How you plannin’ on doing that, huh? Gonna strangle me with your bum arm?”

He just scowls, and tries swatting him over the head with the newspaper.

(Why does he wish Dal was yelling instead?)

***

Put a penny under his tongue so he can gamble in hell. It still doesn’t seem real.

The priest is droning and he tries not to laugh when he gets to the part about _heroes_ and _bravery_ and wonders how much Curtis paid the fucker to sprout all this bullshit. Dal isn’t a hero—

( _wasn’t_ a hero)

—and never wanted to be. Big deal. He threw himself in front of a cop’s gun, who cares.

(What if that had been Curly, in the hospital? Or Angela?)

He’s a fucking asshole, not a hero. And there’s not a single tear at Dally’s funeral. Maybe the rest of his gang already cried themselves out at Cade’s thing, whatever. But Dal’s _not_ a hero, he’s an asshole who spent the better part of two years tormenting Tim. He jumps kids and gambles and rides in rodeos for kicks and screwed around behind his girl’s back, with a man, no less. It’s cloudy, and Tim’s struggling to connect the wooden box with the guy he thought he knew. Didn’t realise he’d leave so soon.

“Shepard. Can I get a ride?”

Sylvia steps up in front of him at the end of the service. He startles—he hadn’t noticed that the handful of people were trickling away, murmuring.

She looks stone-faced as everyone else. But it’s the small things that tell, like the smudge in her mascara and red in her eyes and the way her voice comes out slightly hoarse. She sounded like that after she sucked his cock at the back of that bar.

Does she notice the tremor in his hands when he jams them in his pockets? The way his lips are pressed together in a thin line?

“How the hell did ya get here, without a ride?”

“Buck. But he got sick of it and left halfway through.”

Tim sighs through his nose and yeah, whatever, he’s too tired to argue. “Fine. Get in the car.” Buck had the right idea, flaking out. God, he’s never felt so drained.

They’re silent in the car until they hit some dirt road and Sylvia turns around, from that statue-still position she was sitting in, and says, “Hey, Tim.”

“What?” Not in the mood to talk.

“I knew. About you and Dallas.”

Tim slams the breaks and veers to the side of the road so violently he almost ends up in the ditch. Stare at her, wide-eyed. Tongue-tied for once, and too emotionally vulnerable to laugh it off like he should’ve done. What has Dallas done to him? Left him a wreck, that’s what—

Oh god, _she knows—_

“How?” Tim chokes out.

She laughs bitterly, and picks a bit of polish away from her manicured nails. “It wasn’t too hard to work out. Once you knew him.”

“Oh.”

“And besides. He said your name in bed. And didn’t even realise it.”

Tim swallows. “I don’t—” choked off. Anyone else hears about it and he’s dead—it would be easy to throw Dal under a bus now that he’s dead, fake ignorance, _he’s the queer not me_ , and nobody else will know, only Sylvia, because he’s shown too much to her—

“It’s alright,” she says quietly. “I won’t tell.”

He shudders and lets out a long breath. Pulls the handbrake on and stares straight ahead in silence. The hell does he say to that?

“In some kind of fucked-up way,” she whispers, the words sounding strained. “I’d rather it was you. Than some other broad. Because then—”

“Yeah,” Tim’s voice cracks. “Yeah. I know.”

(Just like he doesn’t know what he would’ve done if Dal had been with another man. But it was only Sylvia.

Although, in hindsight, maybe it would be wrecking him less. Fucking _asshole.)_

“I knew,” she says, voice brittle. “What it was like. How it felt, not having him completely.”

“You cheated.”

“So did he.”

_(It’s not cheating,_ he’d said.)

“For what it’s worth,” and now, Sylvia really does look like she’s gonna set off crying when she looks down at her hands, knuckles white around her purse. “He always liked you better.”

Memories of eyes that crinkle when he smiles, of the way he would whine when he wanted something. How he looked when Sylvia two-timed, of a frown, of betrayal and wide-eyed shock.

“No, he didn’t.”

“He spent all his time with you,” she says.

“He gave you a ring.”

She snorts. “We both know why he couldn’t just stick with you.”

“Lord.” Tim hates how he can’t stop his voice wavering. “Who the fuck cares anymore? What when he’s—”

“It hurts a little, huh?” she rasps. “Knowing that he didn’t care enough about either of us to fuckin’ stay.”

Tim swallows the lump in his throat, resists the urge to wipe at his eyes, to slam his hands into the steering wheel, to do anything that shows exactly what effect Dallas still has on him, even when he’s six feet underground.

“He fuckin’ deserved it,” Sylvia chokes out. She’s ignoring the single tear that’s escaped her eye and it runs down her cheekbone, tinted grey with her mascara. “That time me n’ you hooked up. He fuckin’ _deserved_ it goddammit—”

“Lord, I know he did.”

Silence again. She’s got herself back under control, deep breaths, easy now and Tim desperately wants a smoke. A car drives past, kicking up dust.

“Hang it all,” she mutters, and her voice is all but steady when she kicks at the empty cup that’s rolled out from under her seat. Tim vaguely wonders if she could rattle off Dal’s DQ order like she could her own as he mutters a curse and snatches up the cup from the floor, leaning over Sylvia to roll down her window and toss it out. “That slick little fucker. Ain’t nobody else leave their trash in my goddamn car.”

“You’d better hope he threw away the rest of it otherwise those pickles are gonna start stinking,” she says, and Tim mutters a plethora of obscenities when he shoves her legs out of the way and digs under the seat to uncover the remains of paper packaging and—

“Aw _fuck—”_ He gags when a disgusting-looking pickle falls out of the crumpled mess and she shrieks when it lands on her lap. And suddenly he’s laughing and she’s laughing, unexpected and uncontrollable, when he waves the rest of the paper in her face, teasing, and when she slaps it out of his hand, out of the window.

Hurl the rest of the trash out the car to join the cup and the paper and she helps, and then it hits him that he’s already clearing Dal out of his life. His first tears come with a choked-up gasp and it’s fucking pathetic—because of all things—

He’s parked by the side of the fucking road with his girl and he’s getting all worked up over a fucking paper bag and pickles that Dal would never eat.

“ _Fuck_ him,” she spits, through the tears running down her face. “Oh god, fuck him, that selfish little _asshole_ —wish we’d never met—”

And she wrenches a box of matches from her purse, throws one out the window and lights up the trash by the side of the road, watches it burn. Tim slumps forwards, forearms trembling on the wheel. A bitter laugh bubbles up in his throat but an ugly, ugly sob is what escapes.

(Fuck him.)

He’s not surprised when she turns around and clings to the front of his jacket, her small body trembling just as bad as he’s shaking. And fuck it, she’s looking for comfort, and Lord knows they both need it. She’s warm and her tears soak into his shirt and his into her hair, and she knows exactly how it hurts.

_(Wish we’d never met.)_

***

Little things, little reminders of what they used to be. Like a pair of his underwear in Tim’s closet, a pack of Kool’s under his mattress and a chewed-up stick of gum covered in tufts of white-blonde hair slyly stuck under the dash in his car. Piss on his grave for that one. He always got the last fuckin’ laugh.

Cheap cologne lingering on Tim’s leather jacket, Elvis on the radio, nobody to eat all the peanut butter in a week. Reminders that he was here once, part of Tim’s life. Makes him break down a little every single time.

Drunk, and he’s at Buck’s place but there aren’t any eyes tracking him around the room. Hank Williams is playing again and _Lord,_ why can he hear Dal’s voice bitching about the music in his head? He drifts upstairs and finds himself waiting inside Dal’s room until it hits him that it’s not Dal’s room anymore. But that burn mark is still on the fucking rug.

There’s a box in the corner and Tim takes it with him. Everything he owned, packed up in a ratty cardboard box that Buck's tossed into the corner of the room. Drive home drunk, park half on the curb. Whatever. 

(Not _whatever_.)

There’s not much in it, not that Tim was expecting there to be. All his clothes stink like him, and he aches for a time that the way Dal smelled was so familiar that he’d hardly register it. 

T-shirt, T-shirt, jeans. That’s Tim’s sweatshirt. He’s been looking for it for a while and it’s been in Dal’s fuckin’ closet the whole time.

At the bottom, a photograph. Of himself. Tim squashes down a laugh and the other feeling inside him, and it’s surprisingly easy to just feel nothing at all. Dally’s mugshot, that Tim lifted from the station when he got hauled in once, then framed as a dumb fucking gag gift. Signed and everything.

(It’s funny, that the fact that he kept it means more to Tim than the fact that Dal never got him anything, ever, in all the years they knew each other.)

Go to sleep aching. Tim dreams he gets into another fight with him, under the streetlights and rain, and that this time he walks away. He misses him desperately, even in the dream.

So he rolls over to the other side of the bed, where his warm body should be—there’s a four in seven chance that he’ll be there, after all—just to make sure he’s not really gone.

But he’s not there, and never will be again. There’s nothing he can do but lie in the cold and let tears soak into the pillow, clutch it and let it muffle choked-off sobs. Imagine it’s him that he’s holding. Don’t know exactly how many bumps he had on his spine, even though Tim used to spend hours just running his hands down his back, but it’s impossible to forget the way his hips fit in his hands. Feel his absence like an ache in a phantom limb.

It was always going end like this.

_(Did he ever mean to make you feel this way?)_

**Author's Note:**

> uh so i listened to exactly one Hank Williams song (Lovesick Blues-- the one Tim was bitching about in this thing) and just about died laughing 10/10 would recommend. that shit caught me off guard 
> 
> kudos, comments and feedback always appreciated! I do have tumblr @jvo_taiski but it's empty lmao
> 
> Jx


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